Saturday, December 3, 2016

The Container of Soul: Mutuality and the Enneagram*

Understanding your Enneagram
style is a powerful tool to enhance your
personal
effectiveness and
spiritual development. The Enneagram is even more powerful
when explored in the context of
relationships
with others. While each of the Enneagram combinations
brings special considerations to the development of mutuality, any
combination will offer complementary gifts as well as the potential
to exaggerate each style's down side. Here, you'll learn how to
create specific actions that are mutually enhancing, whatever the
combination of styles.

For example, if you're a
Three interacting with an
Eight you might find
that both of you– for different reasons– are out of touch with your emotional side. It
would be mutually developmental to practice and reinforce each other for active listening.

Or if you're a
Two
(highly relational) interacting with a Five (highly independent)
you both would benefit from exploring your differences, agreeing that the Two will give
the Five a little more space and the Five will accede to the Two's
desire for a bit more interaction.

Regardless of the combination of
Enneagram styles, the first steps to create mutuality are to value each person's gifts, be
sensitive to areas in need of growth, and approach the relationship in ways that are
mutually enhancing and beneficial.

Consciously framing each
person's potential development in terms of mutuality includes discussing how one Enneagram style complements the other, as well as mutual blind spots. The examples below, using the Six/Nine partnership for illustration,
are only some of many possible ideas for mutually developmental actions:

Although acted out in
different ways,
both Sixes and Nines have problems with decision-making. Nines may
procrastinate
while they gather others' opinions and/or seek to build consensus
because they have
difficulty knowing choosing; Sixes may procrastinate while
they gather more data to develop certainty about the "right"
choice and/or worry
about how others will judge their decisions. Both may change their
minds – Nines because
they don't want to be pinned down, Sixes because they begin to
doubt themselves.
Both, however, rely too much on others' opinions. This is a
development area where similarity
of focus can be beneficial to both. It's often easier to see
someone else's behavior
initially, so they could agree to give each other feedback about
decision-making behavior and to discuss and look for blind spots in
their rationale for delaying decisions. Or they
might agree to meet once a week to review decisions and compare
notes, each learning from
the other.

Similarity
of focus can also be beneficial in the way both communicate their ideas. Nines
are known for their epic tales; it's sometimes difficult to get a simple
answer from them as they struggle to bring their complex awareness of
infinite alternatives down to a central theme. Sixes can feel
charged with so many things they want to say, listeners are left trying to
figure out the message.
For both it's useful to ask before speaking, "What's my key theme? What are
my main points? Who is my audience? What do I want them to understand?"
Efforts
to improve in this area can be mutually developmental by (1) listening to each other and
summarizing what appear to be relevant points and/or (2) preparing and rehearsing with
each other to confirm whether or not their message is clear. In either case their
heightened awareness will help both develop more clarity.

Sixes tend to look for hidden agendas– sometimes unnecessarily. Nines tend to look on the bright side– to a fault. It would
be mutually developmental in a complementary way if each would consciously seek the
other to fill in the flip side and create a more balanced perspective.

According to Enneagram theory, both
Sixes and Nines have a connection to the achievement-oriented
Three.
They can support each others' development by encouraging the up side of their Three
connection, stimulating each other to action, accomplishments, and success. For example, they
could set deadlines for a mutually valued project and hold themselves and each other
accountable to meet specific milestones.

Nines need to
assert themselves more, speak up for themselves,
confront others directly. Sixes do this more readily. Together,
they can observe and discuss how to model for and learn from each other:

The Nine can openly appreciate
and imitate the Six's courageous action by being more assertive, while simultaneously
helping the Six know when to draw the line between challenging someone and
suggesting a solution.

The Six can acknowledge and imitate
the Nine's patience and graciousness in sometimes giving others the benefit
of the doubt, while simultaneously helping the Nine distinguish
between self-effacement and diplomatic problem-solving.

Sixes will recognize when they're upset. Nines have a tendency to "merge" with the partner, and may find
their own feelings emerging in response to a problem the Six is experiencing:

In response to these emerging
feelings, Nines may withdraw into their own feeling state and/or want to talk about
their own feelings and similar experiences, leaving the Six feeling stranded.
The Nine may
also take on the Six's problem, playing the role of intermediary in order to seek harmony
or stability. It's mutually developmental if the Nine's own feelings
are kept separate and the Nine acts as a sounding board for the Six, then encourages the Six to decide what
to do (it's important for Sixes to experience their own potency).

Subsequently they could focus on
discovering and dealing separately with the Nine's own feelings ("Why did
I react so strongly?
What must I be feeling deep inside?"). At this
point, the Six could be the sounding board for the Nine.

Use the principles of mutuality to seek interactions that simultaneously develop yourself and the other
person in all your relationships, using the above examples from the Six/Nine interaction to stimulate your thinking.

Mutuality is a reflection of the shared belief that both
people in a relationship can grow, as reflected in this quote from Thomas
Moore:

Friendship is the container of soul [and] the soul requires many varieties of vessels and many kinds of spaces in order to work
day by day with the raw material life serves up.

No comments:

Transform Your Relationships

Think of three painful relation- ship situations where one of your characteristic Enneagram patterns played out. Run through each mentally from beginning to end. What do the three have in common?

In writing: (1) Describe these situations, their consequences for you, and your responsibility for each. (2) Identify the mechanism that keeps these situations alive for you, that hasn't let you forget or forgive. What's the pay-off in the present? (Examples: illusion of control, feeling a charge from the anger, not having to face your own fear of intimacy, etc.)